Message from the President and CEO

The Isetan Mitsukoshi Group was created in 2008 with the vision of becoming “the world’s foremost retail services group.”

This spring, the Group will mark the tenth year since its formation. During those ten years, intertype competition intensified even further and the environment for consumption continued to diversify, including a shift from things to services/experiences.

In order for the Isetan Mitsukoshi Group to achieve sustainable growth in such an environment, it is urgent that we increase our earning power by further increasing productivity in the department store business and by establishing a growth strategy. Also, in the interest of turning our business around, from 2017 to fiscal 2018 we will swiftly carry out structural reform, exercising selectivity and concentrating our efforts on growth businesses, thereby ensuring that we are on a path toward regrowth by fiscal 2020.

Toward that end, we will work with employees and suppliers to turn the Isetan Mitsukoshi Group into Japan’s best place to work—a place that is free-spirited and vibrant. We will give even more attention than before to customers and other stakeholders, in pursuit of fair and highly transparent operations that value dialogue.

Aiming to further improve our corporate value, we will once again reconsider what our raison d'être is, what it is that customers and the market expect of us, and what our strengths are. The Isetan Mitsukoshi Group will then make a concerted effort to restructure operations, employing selectivity and concentrating efforts in specific areas, in order to improve near-term corporate performance and get onto a growth path as soon as possible.

As we work toward these goals, we continue to look forward to further support from all of our stakeholders.